UAC - NEWS Letter Easter 2015

View from United Air Charter deck

With the river rising our view here from United Air Charter is just magical!

Saving Baby Summer!

What started out as a "long" helicopter flight through the Batoka gorge and over the Victoria Falls ended in saving the life of a two week old Buffalo calf. Toward the end of the flight and on the approach to the heli-pad Dale Jardine, Pilot at United Air Charter noticed a dead buffalo in the bush.

Not knowing what killed it, Dale wanted to see if poacher may have had a hand in it. Dale , Werner and Ronald decided to take their chances against whatever else there may be lurking in the bush around that area. Not having seen any other buffalo during any of the flight on the day, they figured they had good chances of not coming across one.

It was not 5 minutes after they left the road on foot that they came across the first signs of foul play. Poachers had been setting snares on all the foot paths big enough to catch an elephant and in this case a buffalo. Soon after that they found the buffalo, still bound by the snare and next to it was its calf.

They sat with if for an hour as they waited for the Zambian Wild life Authority to come to investigate the poaching. During that time, the baby buffalo became quite brave and inquisitive and it even came up and sniffed Dale's hand. The Zambian Wild Life granted Mukuni Big 5 permission to wean the calf of milk and get it to a heard of buffalo as soon as possible to try and integrate it with the heard.

The good news is that that calf is really doing well, and was named Summer after Dale, our pilot's daughter. United Air Charter is going to do our best with the help of local Authority to try and limited the poaching in this area.

Easter Weekend

Still wondering what to do over Easter Weekend? Why not do a flight over the falls or just come and enjoy a lunch on our deck!